“I’m in position,” I typed, underneath Klora’s identical message.
“Xeranos, we are ready for you to begin,” Sachuu typed, alerting the AI who was included in our group chat.
“Triangulating,” Xeranos replied. A few moments later, he added, “Scanning complete. According to property records, there is an old septic tank in the side yard from before the house was connected to the county sewer. I can see a flower bed is on top of it. They need to look there.”
Klora hurried over to me, a wide grin on his face. “Do you think it’s the husband, or someone else?”
I grinned back. “Whoever it is, she has some explaining to do, in court.”
“I wonder how the L.T.C. is going to explain telling them where to dig.”
I shrugged. “Pull up the relevant records Xeranos found, probably, if the dogs don’t alert them to the spot, and suggest they dig.”
“And if they say no?” Klora asked, grimacing. “They don’t seem interested in having anything to do with us.”
“Then I’ll force the issue by speaking to their regional director,” Sachuu said, joining us.”I’ve pulled up the records Xeranos linked me to, just in case. Meanwhile, we should walk slowly across the ground and look as if we are examining it.”
We nodded and spread out, slowly making a sweep.
“Nothing in there,” Jeffries called out, looking disgruntled when he came out.
“We still have the yard to look at and around the base of the house,” Peterson reminded him as we approached.
Jeffries glared at us. “If this turns out to be a waste of time and money, it’s coming out of your pockets,” he told Sachuu.
Sachuu merely shrugged and replied, “It is anyway. It’s our case, as it relates to a crime committed against two of our people.”
“Two humans, one who married one of your lot, and his underage brother he had guardianship over,” Jeffries countered.
Peterson shook his head at his partner. “Tom, don’t,” he murmured.
“Don’t what, Frank?” Jeffries snapped at his partner. “Remind them that no actual alien was a victim here? That we’re looking for a human body?”
Peterson gave him a hard look. “By law, those boys are Mylos and that means any crime that might be related, even in the tiniest way, is their jurisdiction. We’re only here because of political football, and you know it.” He gave us an apologetic look.
Jeffries made a sound of disgust and stalked over to where a local deputy was walking one of the two sniffer dogs around the foundations.
“Sorry about that,” Peterson said. “I’ve got no idea what his beef is with your people, but he needs to get over it.”
Sachuu nodded. “We get this a lot. It takes time for people to become accustomed to the presence of aliens and the reality of much larger civilizations beyond their own.” Sachuu took a deep breath. “Actually, I wanted to ask that the dogs check out the flower bed on the eastern side of the house. See how it’s in the middle of the grassy area there?”
“Yeah,” Peterson said, looking. “It is rather off. Usually, a bed like that would be next to the fence or beside a path or something, not just randomly placed.”
“Indeed. A look at old county records indicates that an old septic tank might be buried there, from before the county extended the sewer lines out here.”
Peterson’s eyes lit up in understanding. “A septic tank would be an ideal place to hide a body, especially if you built a raised bed over it like that one,” he allowed.
“Quite.”
“Let’s get the dogs to sniff around the yard, and if they don’t find anything, I’ll mention it to him. He won’t listen if it comes from y’all,” Peterson said.
“As long as it gets checked, I don’t care who he thinks thought of it,” Sachuu informed him. “Here are the county records. I found them online.” he showed Peterson his phone, who took his own and typed in the URL to the page they were looking at.
Giving Sachuu a conspiratorial wink, he said, “Lookie here at what I just found while waiting for the dogs to finish sniffing around.”
Klora laughed. “How very timely,” he said, and we all chuckled.
“What are you all laughing about?” Jeffries asked, storming over.
